The global counternarcotics regime, created and enforced by the United States since the 1950s, now faces profound challenges. An increasing number of countries in Europe and Latin America find that the regime’s emphasis on punitive approaches to drug use and the suppression of illicit drugs to be problematic and are asking for reform. This reaction is hardly uniform throughout the world, however, as critical players such as Russia and China, remain committed to the preservation of the regime’s long-standing punitive approach. Meanwhile, drug policy changes at the national and state level in the United States, including cannabis legalization in some states, are making it increasingly uninteresting, difficult, and inappropriate for it to play the role of the world’s toughest drug cop.

Medical marijuana shops popping up all over Metro Vancouver are giving parents and their children the wrong impression about weed, says an addictions specialist.

“Using the term ‘medical’ is giving a false impression to people — parents and kids,” says Dr. Siavash Jafari, who works out of several Vancouver Coastal Health clinics in Vancouver and also the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction.

“To say ‘medical’ means it is supported by the medical community. It is not. That’s a misconception among the public.” he says.

“Parents feel that it’s not dangerous so they don’t talk to their kids about it.”

Denver, the Mile High City, has seen a spike in tourists booking flights and hotels as it prepares for the annual "420" celebration. In part April 20 celebrates marijuana becoming legal in Colorado in 2014.

April 20 has become a red later day for marijuana smokers primarily in North America. Some events on that day promote the legalization of cannabis.  

Last year was Denver's first 420 celebration. Even though it occurred on Easter Sunday, tens of thousands of tourists helped to create a cloud of marijuana smoke above the city.

Canadians buying legal marijuana have a much slimmer selection than their American counterparts. That’s because Health Canada-licensed producers are allowed to sell only dried cannabis through the mail to registered patients and must stay away from “edibles” or other forms of the drug that are regulated south of the border.

However, like medicinal and recreational pot sold in Washington State, Canada’s 17 licensed producers offer dozens of strains of dried leaves that help patients treat a range symptoms. Canadian producers must also display the potency of the batch’s tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) content, as enforced under the federal Ministry of Health’s current Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations.

EAST ST. LOUIS — The metro-east’s first medical marijuana farm is set to be housed in a vacant U.S. Cellular switching station just south of where Interstate 70 crosses the new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge into St. Louis.

At 737 Locust Ave., the site covers 6.7 acres at the end of an unpaved road that stretches nearly half a mile from Illinois 3. The site, which is bounded by railroad tracks on the west and an entry ramp to I-70 under construction to the north, is heavily wooded and home to local wildlife, including turkeys.

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

Although hemp (cannabis sativa) and marijuana (cannabis sativa var. indica) come from a similar species of plant, they are very different and confusion has been caused by deliberate misinformation with far reaching effects on socioeconomics as well as on environmental matters.

Canada’s high court on Friday will contemplate whether it’s a constitutional right to munch cookies, brownies and oils laced with medical marijuana.

Federal regulations restrict authorized users of physician-prescribed cannabis to consuming only dried marijuana plants. Brewing pot in tea, baking it into a brownie or any form of consumption other than smoking the dried plant buds can trigger criminal trafficking and narcotics possession charges under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The question before the Supreme Court of Canada, in its first foray into the medical marijuana debate, is whether the Health Canada regulation violated medical marijuana users’ constitutional right to life, liberty and safety.

Traditional retailers have become much more adept at using technology to push back against online-only e-commerce sites. 

Beacons are among the most important new mobile technologies helping real-world merchants win back sales. These low-cost devices communicate with smartphone apps indoors through a Bluetooth signal. Last year saw tons of retailers testing beacons, including Macy's and Target. This year, hundreds of big retail chains are turning those devices on and using them to communicate with mainstream consumers in store.

Entrepreneurs hope to capitalize on multimillion-dollar green rush with plan for licensing authority

"When I started to take care of marijuana in 1967, I had no doubt that it was a very harmful drug which, unfortunately, was being used by a growing number of young people unaware that they could not understand or did not listen to the warnings about its dangers. My intention was to describe scientifically the nature and degree of this danger. In the three following years, while browsing the scientific literature, medical and profane, my opinion began to change. I came to understand that I, like many other people in this country, I was subjected to brainwashing. My beliefs about the dangers of marijuana had little empirical foundation. When I completed the research I became convinced that cannabis was considerably less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, legal drugs most commonly used.